To be so upset and angry because of complaint about my friend breastfeeding?

[memoo]

My friend and work colleague had a DD 6 months ago. We both work in a primary school.

Several weeks ago my friend visited her old reception class in school. The class topic has been 'Growing' ang the reception teacher thought it would be nice for my friend to bring her DD in during the lesson where they would be talking about babies.

I've just had a phone call from my friend and I'm really angry at what she told me.

Apparently at the end of the lesson in school my friend needed to feed her DD and so sat quietly in the reading corner away from the children while she BF.

Friend had a call from the head on Friday telling her that a parent has complained about her BF'ing in front of the children

This parent said that her DS had said he had seen Mrs "boobies" and had been a bit giggley about it.

The head is being lovely and only spoke to my friend about purely to let her know what has happen and as far as I know this parent has been put in her place.

I am just so shocked that this parent could do this. I know the parent in question and the more I think about it I#m getting more and more angry!!!!

dp, I'm white, heterosexual and married, and you're completely unreasonable.

Back on topic, the only time I have felt really uncomfortable breastfeeding was when some family friends invited us and our tiny baby round for dinner and I had to go upstairs to feed him three times.

If you think children shouldn't see women breastfeeding, anytime, anywhere, you have ishoos.
Please get over it for the sake of your own children.

but are you from SURREY??!!

According to GaySurrey.org, a third of gay children in Surrey have experienced homophobic bullying in their own homes.
So maybe DP's attitude is quite acceptable in Surrey.

I'm not in Surrey. I'm in Yorkshire. I don't know what dp might think of that.

gay children?

Daftpunk: How on earth could people be criticising you because of you being white, heterosexual, married and in Surrey? How would anyone know what ethnicity you were until you told them, what sexual orientation you were until you started saying stoooopid things about gay people, know whether you were married or not, and where you lived???

I knew nothing of your posting history, let alone your address, and yet I worked out from your first 2 posts here that your opinion was worth criticising....clever of me? No. The first two posts already marked you as having bizarre ideas about bf.

Nothing to do with bloody Surrey, FFS.

Why the question mark Greensneeze? Do you not believe children can be gay by any chance?

WOAH there .... 3 hours ago I was posting about cows' udders, topless sunbathing in classrooms and wondering what irony is ..... now we are on gay children? Are they being gay discreetly in the classroom, or are they blatant in the craft corner, because I am not sure my los could cope with that without prior warning.

I am off to bed now because I have totally lost the argument and you all seem to have completely lost the plot.

It was a survey of young people on homophobic bullying in Surrey. 20% knew they were gay by age 10 and 55% knew by age 15.

I can't be bothered to respond to Flocci other than to point out that there are laws in place to prevent bullying on the basis of sexual orientation in schools.

No, I believe they can nooka - definitely. Just as heterosexual people are well aware of who they are attracted to before they are old enough to be sexually active. I don't believe there's a difference according to sexuality.

I posted "gay children?" because I wasn't sure Milly meant children who are gay, or the children of gay parents. I was a little taken aback because I haven't seen anyone really address the issue of homosexuality in children on MN before. I've discussed it in RL a few times and it still seems to be quite contentious for a lot of people.

Ah, well me too - that's why I wondered what you meant IYSWIM.

How did I miss this? As usual read first 10 posts early in the evening, thought 'not terribly interesting' and a few hours later it has all kicked off.

I have one thing to say, it comes from a million posts back and I want to thank KayHarker for making it a bit more relevant to this point in time:

Anyone who utters a sentence and then says 'fact' is not stating a fact. They are stating an opinion. Always.

Dafty is probably being deliberately contentious I feel.

Ah but I couldn't Hoochie, because mine really is a fact

The breastfeeding debate is just bizarre. My 5 and 7 year old dds took it in their stride when I started breastfeeding their baby brother, as have their friends. Over the years, breastfeeding at all kinds of school events, kids parties etc. children have mostly completely ignored me or not noticed what I'm doing. A few have asked what I'm doing. They're generally quite happy to either watch or wander off when I say 'feeding my baby.' Maybe I'm very, very lucky in that I've never had a silly giggly reaction! Fortunately, I've never knowingly had anything but support from their mums too.

I'm surprised that gunnerbean and flocci feel that children haven't been exposed to breastfeeding mums before. At most mum+toddler groups, kids parties etc. I've been to, there have been breastfeeding mums and no-one's batted an eyelid. It's just part of mum+child life, surely?

If breastfeeding is normalised and commonplace then you don't have the silly giggly reaction. By insisting it should be hiding away, you're encouraging the 'taboo.'

i've had silly giggling from ds1's peers (5 and 6) when i am feeding ds2
one girl said to me very shocked "you can't get your boobies out HERE!!!" LOL

i'm pleased to come up against these attitudes because it means i can go some way towards correcting the idea that 'boobies' are just rude things you see in magazines on the top shelf, and your mum hurries away tells you not to look

the girl's mum was embarassed at what her dd had said - but unless she was in situations where she saw women bfing without embarassment, it's completely understandable that she only thought of breasts as rude and giggly - that's what society tells us they are

This thread got way off course. I agree entirely with your very sensible post CarmenSanDiego. My DS was 8 when his brother was born and older when the next was born. I am not a militant breast feeder by any means but feeding your baby is part of life, I bf in front of all DS1's friends and parents, my parents and brothers,PIL,strangers. It was very discreed, I doubt whether most of them noticed. No one had a giggly reaction, and only a few DCs asked what I was doing and I gave them a quick short answer which satisfied them. This is how it should be and hopefully will be now that bf mothers have the law on their side. It should be a normal part of life-and it is nothing whatever to do with going to the toilet, taking off your clothes in public etc.

and daftpunk i don't think you are a troll in the usual sense of the word, but a lot of your behaviour is quite trollish

eg outrageous opinions dropped into middle of thread, then being very selective about what responses you answer

Franny, that's what gets me - the selective responses, refusal to answer straight questions, etc. I don't think dp is a troll, and she doesn't get aggressive, which is something to be valued, but she does refuse to properly engage in any discussion which may cause her to actually examine her beliefs.

And I think that's a shame, because to me it's one of the great benefits of MN discussions - you may come out still thinking that your original opinion is right, or you may have modified it or changed it completely. But no belief or opinion is worth anything unless you're prepared to open it to informed scrutiny.

F&Z;

i couldn't reply to all posts...i would have been here all night, why i only replied to one or two.

my views are not actually that outrageous, quite mainstream infact....and i don't have any political leanings towards the BNP...because once they'd kicked out all the immigrants and banned homosexuality they'd come after the catholics...shut our schools etc..

i'll be voting for UKIP...who are of course the conservatives on acid.

Greeny DS1 'came out' to me a few months abck (I did post on MN for informatio) and he is 9, I have no issues with that, tis up to him innit?

All my boys arew fine about me BF their small brother, why wouldn't they be? This despite ds1 being as I say 9 and very body conscious, it's just normal for them, how can it not be after a year of getting them out every few hours?

But DP, you never reply to any questions which ask you for evidence to back up your assertions, or to question your beliefs.

And most people think their views are mainstream, dp - yours are pretty antiquated, I think! But like I said, a view/opinion is worthless if you can't properly open it to scrutiny and criticism.